Unofficial news and tips about Google

April 30, 2007

iGoogle Gadget Maker

As reported by Google Blogoscoped, Google Personalized Homepage will be rebranded as iGoogle and will let you build your own gadgets using wizards. The gadgets are very simple and are more like containers for things that matter to you: photos, videos, events.

"Once the gadget is created, you can invite other people to view & use the gadget, and make it publicly available for other people to view & use it." So whatever you choose to add to a gadget will be visible to the people you invited.

The wizards let you enter the settings for seven new gadget templates:

1. Photo album - add up to 7 photos that can be rotated.

2. GoogleGram - enter seven greeting messages.

3. Daily Me - type what you are doing.

4. Countdown - count the days until a special event.

5. Simple list - you can use it as a ToDo list, shopping list.

6. YouTube videos - up to 10 videos.

7. Freeform gadget - add an image and some text.

The gadgets are a way of staying in touch with your friends: if one of your Gmail contacts creates gadgets you'll be able to see them in a new section of iGoogle called "My Community".